SAN ANTONIO — The City of San Antonio is pushing forward with a community-wide education campaign surrounding the upcoming $1.2 billion infrastructure bond package, which includes for the first time ever, money for affordable housing.
The May 7 bond election is considered the largest bond package ever in San Antonio history with a vast array of projects to be completed between 2022-2027.
A bulk of the bond projects deal with street and bridge infrastructure, parks and recreation, drainage issues and public safety facilities.
Addressing housing and combating homelessness would take up $150 million of the bond package.
The city’s Strategic Housing Implementation Plan serves as a guiding foundation for the future in terms of housing goals.
“All of the housing bond is dedicated to people who are working or moving out of homelessness, but their income just doesn’t allow them to find affordable housing,” said Katie Vela, executive director of the South Alamo Regional Alliance for the Homeless (SARAH).
SARAH is one of several community partners at the forefront of the ongoing effort to tackle homelessness and housing issues in San Antonio.
Vela noted voters can expect the bond money to help with developing new affordable units, fixing old buildings, and assisting current and future homeowners. Another component involves keeping people off the streets through on-site housing programs.
“This is really important because if we don’t preserve the housing, we have now that’s affordable, it won’t be there for future generations,” Vela said. “One that we’re particularly excited about is permanent supportive housing. There’s 25 million dedicated for housing with on-site services to help move people out of homelessness permanently.”
The City of San Antonio’s first Chief Housing Officer Mark Carmona noted members from the housing committee are organizing meetup sessions with neighborhood associations, businesses and faith-based groups in an effort to answer questions and educate on how the bond package could benefit the community.
Carmona affirmed no taxes would be raised as a result of the bond and project accountability is vital.
“The city has really been pushing the SA Speak Up portal as a way for people to engage,” Carmona said. “We’ll have a dashboard to track progress, we’ll have a lot of different layers for reporting and accountability for how we’re doing on the project itself.”